This date may be inferred from two statements by herself, one in “Le Chemin de long estude,” written in 1402, that she had then been widowed thirteen years (ed. R. Püschel, Berlin, 1887, p. 6), and the other in “La Vision” (Koch, p. 12) that she was twenty-five when her husband died, _sc._ in 1389.
“Car comme renommée lors tesmoignast par toute crestienté la souffisance de mon pere naturel és sciences spéculatives comme supellatif astrologien, jusques en Ytalie en la cité de Boulongne la grace par ses messages l’envoya quérir” (“Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V.,” in Petitot’s _Collection des Mémoires_, v. p. 275).
Thus in “La Vision” she writes “le me tolli en fleur de ieunece, comme en l’aage de xxxiiij. ans, et moy de xxv. demouray chargee de iii. enfans petiz et de grant maisnage” (_cf._ p. xi. note 4).
_Œuvres poétiques_, ed. Roy, i. p. 12, “Cent Balades,” No. xi., and p. 148, “Rondeaux,” No. iii.
John de Montacute or Montagu, who succeeded his father as second Baron Montacute in 1390, his mother as Baron Monthermer in 1395 (?), and his uncle as third Earl of Salisbury in 1397. One of the objects of his embassy in 1398 was to hinder the marriage of Henry of Lancaster with a daughter of the Duke of Berry. Christine speaks of him as “gracieux chevalier, aimant dictiez et luy mesme gracieux dicteur” (Boivin, “Vie de Chr. de Pisan,” in Kéralio’s _Collection des meilleurs ouvrages François_, 1787, ii. p. 118).
In a ballad praying the Duke of Orleans to take him into his service (Roy, i. p. 232) she speaks of his having been three years in England:
Ja trois ans a que pour sa grant prouesse L’en amena le conte très louable De Salsbery, qui moru a destrece Ou mal païs d’Angleterre, ou muable Y sont la gent.
Elsewhere she says that Henry IV. “tres joyeusement prist mon enfant vers luy et tint chierement et en très bon estat” (Boivin, p. 119).
An edition, “traduit de langue romanne en prose françoise par Jan Chaperon,” appeared at Paris in 1549. See also above, p. xi., note 4, Koch, p. 76, and Kéralio, ii. p. 297.
In this part of the work she plagiarizes largely from the so-called Travels of Sir John Mandeville (see article by P. Toynbee in _Romania_, xxi. 1892, p. 228).